Parts are often subjected to a number of different manufacturing processes before being assembled into a final product. For example, roof rails and other parts for a pickup truck are typically subjected to a heat treatment to increase strength and a chemical pretreatment to prepare the parts for receiving adhesive used to bond vehicle components together later in the assembly process.
In the past this has been done by loading parts onto a mild steel rack and then subjecting them as a group to heat treatment in an oven. Following heat treatment the parts have been unloaded from the mild steel rack and then reloaded onto a stainless steel rack for purposes of chemical pretreatment. Following chemical pretreatment the parts have been unloaded from the stainless steel rack and reloaded onto a clean rack for transport or transfer to the assembly area.
This document relates to a new multipurpose rack which can properly hold a group of parts for heat treatment, chemical pretreatment and transfer to an assembly area thereby eliminating the re-racking steps. Advantageously the multipurpose rack described in this document lowers production costs by eliminating re-racking, minimalizing the part handling, reducing damage caused by excessive part handling and improving the traceability of parts as they are processed. Further, it reduces the number of racks required for part processing thereby increasing useable floor space at the manufacturing plant. Floor space for the processing equipment is also greatly reduced as we can process multiple parts simultaneously, i.e. 48 and 68 depending on the rack used. Previous methods would have required one part at a time greatly increasing the foot print of the machine that would perform this process.